Recon -3-

As of my initial writing (June 25, 2009, 22:55), I still need to do the linework for this page. I’ve poked at the original TIC backgrounds (much to my dissatisfaction) and looked over the later panels depicting Sterling… I’ve just been blocking on getting it done for some reason. Hopefully that’ll be fixed within the next couple of days – at this moment the only bits left of the entire chapter are the documentation, these two panels, and one other piece of photoshop work.

The transit between the previous page and this one was accomplished by scaling the earth to 10% of its actual size in the previous shot, and restoring it to actual size for this one. Nothing else changed. The Am “afterblast” isn’t as intense as it was for the entrance of the Daedalus in the previous chapter – we’re looking at it from the back, and we’re also looking at it a split second later.

June 27 (00:20) – Banged out the pencils and inks along with the pencils for a commission I’m working on. Everything clicked as I was doing the second pass inks – “ATC AGAIN! WOO!” – and the process kicked into full automatic through cleanup, flat coloring, and environmental assembly. The first non-3d environments I’ve done in… awhile. Touch-ups on existing pages don’t count – I really don’t remember the last time I’ve done a straight photoshop environment for a comics project. Since the Majestic cockpit shot is a one-off, and the TIC was already established, there’s no pressure for consistency. A refreshing change of pace!

Well… a small pressure – I still have to shade these shots, which means I’ll have to try to keep the shading on Torg consistent with the rest of the scene. Shouldn’t be too hard.

Gotta sleep and work a shift first. Hopefully read some more of Churchill’s memoirs in there somewhere.

Counting that one earlier bit, this makes three new drawings for this chapter. Torg’s moderately consistent – he isn’t very consistent to begin with, so “spiky red hair and bigass headset” were all that was required, really. All other shots of Sterling are fairly personality-free – after brief consideration, I decided to draw her with her helmet open. A bit of variety; you get to see her face, the microphone, and OMG A NOSE RING.

If you haven’t noticed, Heirotus doesn’t exactly have a Grooming Standard. While capability is generally valued over presentation as far as the Addicaines* are concerned, [last night (now the 28th) the sentence stopped here and went on to become the rambling string of *s below.] the kind of jobs they perform allow for or demand a variety of “eccentric” hair and grooming styles.

June 28 – Matched Torg’s shading to the rather primitive shading standards of the latter part of the scene, and shaded Sterling to look as awesome as possible. FINALLY, this little bit is DONE! 😀

* The Addicaines aren’t, generally speaking, a military force. Some series/generations are, but by and large the products of the program are effectively one big Odyssey of the Mind team. With weapons training.

Yes, I competed in OM. Twice. We were destroyed by bigger schools. Schools with money. Money, and Crystal Pepsi vending machines. Not that we didn’t try, and not that half our team didn’t get insanely sick one year (if memory serves, Jason and I both wound up on medication of some kind, and both of us wound up hallucinating) as a result.** Great program, though so far the only practical return has been the near-maximum score on the ASVAB. At my school, it wasn’t “offered” – You Took It. And then the Navy recruiter bugged the hell out of you for the next two years.

If I’d listened to him, I’d (maybe, but probably not) be working the reactor room of a Los Angeles or an Ohio class submarine.

Obviously, I had other ideas. Though so far the “stumble along doing whatever for money while working on ATC with no actual plan to capitalize on it” thing is leaving me progressively less and less time for ATC.

In my defense, a severe beating with the book of The Economic Realities Of Being An Artist wasn’t part of the artskool curriculum. Being what you’d call a “conflict of interest” with regards to their all powerful Enrollment Numbers, they feigned ignorance of such things in all but the rarest of circumstances.

Fortunately instead of a drill instructor, circumstances issued me One (1) Angela Love, who did more to prepare me for the realities of the situation than any course could have.

Winding down the night with only a single piece of metadata to whittle away at can get kind of… excessive. Borderline autobiographical!

Gadzooks!

** Yeah, footnoting a footnote again. The town the competition was in was near a power plant or a medical incinerator or something, it was raining, and every member of the Liberty (that’s us!) team who spent more than ten minutes outside came down with some kind of Space Flu.

Mastering notes, 2016.12.06 – Minor dialogue adjustments.

Cast

Sergeant Sparkson is the third shift (0000-0800) Signal Intelligence Operator (SIO) aboard the Sabrosa. As third shift SIO on a training boat, Sparkson spends most of his time looking busy, trying to look busy,...

One of four non-Ikon carbon computer hosts with formal flight training aboard the Sabrosa. When she’s not functioning in an intelligence-gathering capacity, she’s subconsciously processing communications, cryptography, intelligence analysis and medical imaging as part...

Glossary Articles

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The Majestic is a cutting-edge Am-capable reconnaissance aerospacecraft designed to operate in deep space, low orbit and high atmosphere. Equipped with a surveillance package containing military grade electronics and classified Heirotus organic systems, the...